Earnings Call Transcript - HWC Q1 2026

Operator, Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hancock Whitney Corporation's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Operator instructions were provided. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. And I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Kathryn Mistich, Investor Relations Manager. You may begin.

Kathryn Mistich, Investor Relations Manager

Thank you, and good afternoon. During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. We would like to remind everyone to carefully review the safe harbor language that was published with the earnings release and presentation and in the company's most recent 10-K and 10-Q, including the risks and uncertainties identified therein. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by Hancock Whitney speak only as of the date on which they were made. As everyone understands, the current economic environment is rapidly evolving and changing. Hancock Whitney's ability to accurately project results or predict the effects of future plans or strategies or predict market or economic developments is inherently limited. We believe that the expectations reflected or implied by any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, but are not guarantees of performance or results, and our actual results and performance could differ materially from those set forth in our forward-looking statements. Hancock Whitney undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Some of the remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial tables. The presentation slides included in our 8-K are also posted with the conference call webcast link on the Investor Relations website. We will reference some of these slides in today's call. Participating in today's call are John Hairston, President and CEO; Mike Achary, CFO; Chris Ziluca, Chief Credit Officer; and Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer. I will now turn the call over to John Hairston.

John Hairston, President and CEO

Thank you, Kathryn, and thanks to everyone for joining us this afternoon. We are pleased to report a solid start to 2026. Our adjusted ROA was 1.43%, ROTCE was 14.64% and EPS was $1.52, all improved from prior quarter. Adjusted EPS compared to the same quarter last year increased over 10%. We are very excited to welcome 27 net new revenue producers to our strong banking team, and we expect to build on the momentum we have to generate meaningful balance sheet growth and profitability improvement over the rest of 2026. We achieved another quarter of solid earnings with NIM expansion an efficiency ratio of about 55%, consistent strong fee income and well-managed expenses. Net interest margin expanded 7 basis points this quarter due to higher securities yields following our bond portfolio restructuring and lower cost of funds that outpaced the impacts of lower loan yields in this rate environment. Loans grew $33 million or 1% annualized. Loan production totaled $1.2 billion, down from last quarter, but up $365 million compared to the same quarter last year. Historically, first quarter loan growth is seasonally softer, but average balances were up $250 million over fourth quarter. We anticipate average growth to improve as the year progresses with a strong pipeline and continued success in adding bankers. Our guidance of mid-single digits for the year for loan growth is unchanged. Deposits were down $198 million or 3% annualized due to seasonal public funds outflows. Interest-bearing public funds decreased $280 million and public fund DDAs decreased $75 million. Excluding the impact of public fund DDA outflows, DDAs would actually have been up $45 million. DDA mix ended the quarter at a very strong 36%. Interest-bearing transaction and savings accounts were up $261 million with higher balances driven by competitive products and pricing. Retail time deposits were down $149 million due to maturities during the quarter. We continue to enjoy a healthy CD renewal rate of about 85%. We have not changed our guidance on deposits as we still expect balances to be up low single digits from 2025 levels. This quarter, we continued to proactively return capital to shareholders through repurchasing 1.4 million shares of our common stock and increasing our quarterly cash dividend 11%, now standing at $0.50 per share. Additionally, we deployed capital through the previously announced bond restructuring effort, which was completed in January. We ended the quarter with a solid TCE of 9.93% and a common equity Tier 1 ratio of 13.3%. Despite market volatility and an emerging scenario of flat rates, we remain optimistic and confident for our growth prospects for the rest of 2026. We're closely monitoring macroeconomic trends and indicators, including both nationally and within our footprint. While the environment remains dynamic, our ample liquidity, solid allowance for credit losses of 1.43% and very strong capital keep us well positioned to navigate challenges and support our clients in really any economic scenario. With that, I'll invite Mike to add additional comments.

Michael Achary, CFO

Thanks, John. Good afternoon, everyone. As John said at the onset, the company's performance in the first quarter was exceptional. Adjusted for the net loss in the bond portfolio restructuring, net income for the first quarter was $125 million or $1.52 per share compared to $126 million or $1.49 per share in the fourth quarter. As shown on Slide 20 of the investor deck, we remain confident in the guidance provided at the beginning of the year and have not made any changes this quarter. We are, however, now assuming no rate cuts throughout 2026 with no significant impact to NII or our NIM. PPNR for the company was down slightly from the prior quarter or about 1% to $173 million. Expressed as a return on average assets that continues to be a solid 1.98%. Net interest income increased 1% this quarter. Our fee income business continues to perform exceptionally and expenses were up but remained well controlled. Fee income adjusted for the net loss on the bond portfolio restructuring was essentially flat with last quarter, down only $1 million. The slight decrease was driven by lower specialty income, which tends to be somewhat unpredictable quarter-to-quarter. Expenses remained well controlled, only up 1% from last quarter. Much of this increase was from seasonal increases in payroll taxes and related benefits. We remain focused on making thoughtful investments in revenue-generating activities while balancing expense growth with top line revenue creation. As expected, our NIM was up 7 basis points this quarter to 3.55%, driven by a reduction in our cost of deposits and a higher yield on our bond portfolio, partly offset by lower loan yields following 2 rate cuts in the fourth quarter of last year. Our overall cost of funds was down 8 basis points to 1.44% due to a lower cost of deposits and a better funding mix. Our cost of deposits was down 10 basis points to 1.47% for the quarter with the cost of deposits down to 1.46% in the month of March. During the quarter, we reduced promotional rate pricing on our interest-bearing transaction accounts and retail CDs. In 2026, we expect CDs will continue to mature and renew at lower rates, although the rate advantage will diminish over the year in a flat rate environment. Our earning asset yield was down 1 basis point with loan yields down 13 basis points following the rate cuts in the fourth quarter. Our bond yields were up 25 basis points related to the quarter's restructuring transaction. Average earning assets were up $100 million, driven by higher average loans, partly offset by a lower level of bonds. The yield on the bond portfolio, as mentioned, was up 25 basis points to 3.23% related to the quarter's restructuring transaction. The transaction contributed 4 basis points to our NIM expansion this quarter. As a reminder, the first quarter did not include a full quarter's impact from the transaction. We expect the full quarterly increase in bond yields will approach 32 basis points and the annual contribution to NIM will be about 7 basis points. Aside from the restructuring transaction, we reinvested $181 million back into the bond portfolio at higher yields. Loan yields, as mentioned, were down 13 basis points following the rate cuts in the fourth quarter of 2025. The total fixed rate was unchanged from last quarter at 5.28% and the total variable rate was down about 14 basis points. Total new loan rates were down 10 basis points quarter-over-quarter, but that was partly offset by an increase in average loans of about $250 million linked quarter. For the fifth consecutive quarter, our criticized commercial loans improved, decreasing $13 million to $522 million. Nonaccrual loans increased $6 million to $113 million. Net charge-offs came in at 19 basis points, so down from the prior quarter's 22 basis points. Our loan loss reserves are solid and unchanged at 1.43% of loans. We expect net charge-offs to average loans will come in at about 15 to 25 basis points for the full year. Lastly, a comment on capital. Our capital ratios remained remarkably strong, even with the proactive capital deployment we completed during the quarter through the bond restructuring transaction, share repurchases and an increase in our common cash dividend. We expect that share repurchases will continue at similar levels throughout the year. Changes in the growth dynamics of our balance sheet, economic conditions and share valuation could impact that view. I will now turn the call back to John.

John Hairston, President and CEO

Thanks, Mike. Let's open the call for questions.

Operator, Operator

Operator instructions were provided. And our first question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James.

Michael Rose, Analyst

Maybe we can just start on loan growth. I think that's the one piece of the story that investors are really looking forward to seeing pick up here as we move through the year. Certainly understand the elevated paydowns. It looks like originations were still pretty good in what is typically a seasonally weaker quarter. But it does look like a lot of the growth was maybe driven this quarter by higher SNC balances. So maybe, John, is there a way to kind of map out what we should expect for loan growth in the back half of the year? I know you have the guidance, but more specifically, what gives you confidence that you can actually begin to see some real net growth and for it to pick up here because I think that's a big linchpin for investors.

John Hairston, President and CEO

Sure, Michael. Thanks for the question. I'm going to let Shane tackle that question.

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Thanks, Michael. So our first quarter loan growth was $33 million, and that, I believe, reflects solid underlying momentum. We produced about $1.2 billion in loans, and that's up from $850 million from a year ago and really saw strength across business banking, commercial, middle market, health care, commercial finance and CRE. That net growth, as you articulated, was moderated though by some normal portfolio dynamics. So we had mortgage and consumer amortization and some planned paydowns in some of our larger credits across CRE, health care and our specialty lines. That all was anticipated. And from the outset, we've talked about indicating growth would be more weighted towards the mid and back half of the year. So if you look forward, I think we're positioned to deliver the mid-single-digit full year growth. Geographic markets are continuing to build momentum. Our CRE production is ahead of plan. Business banking is growing consistently and health care and commercial finance pipelines remain strong. Really importantly, though, we've hired 27 net new bankers, as John mentioned, with more coming in the second quarter. And our prior year hires are now ramping up to create a flywheel for production and growth. So I think if you take that together, the production, funding timing, banker productivity puts us in a good position for the balance of the year. And we're starting this first quarter in a positive place, even though it's not a significant number, but compared to last year, we were in a deficit in the first quarter. So we feel like we're in a really good position to be able to leverage production and new banker hires as we go through the back half of the year.

Michael Achary, CFO

Michael, this is Mike. Seasonal perspective, you're right. The first quarter is usually the lowest quarter for production in terms of seasonal impacts. But again, as a reminder, as we go through the year, that production tends to pick up from a seasonal perspective and the fourth quarter is usually our best growth quarter. So we have that momentum that was started this quarter. And certainly, the intent is to build on that as we go through the year.

Michael Rose, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate it. And maybe just as my follow-up, Mike, I certainly hear you on the pace of buybacks, at least in the nearer term. Obviously, there's some Basel III endgame and G-SIB reforms for the larger banks, but I think a lot of smaller banks are talking about maybe lower CET1 ratios than they might have contemplated before. Can you give us an update on what your ultimate target is for CET1 and how we should think about a year-end number as you balance repurchases and growth?

Michael Achary, CFO

Well, the way we think about it is if you look at the slide that we have in there around our guidance and specifically the CSOs, we give some targets around certain profitability metrics, but as importantly, TCE. And as a reminder, those CSOs are styled toward achievement in fourth quarter of '28. So for TCE, we think that somewhere between 9% and 9.5% is a target that we can achieve at that point. And then if we look at CET1, that companion number is probably between 12% and 12.5% or somewhere in that range. So those are the levels that we think we can kind of aspire to by the end of '28. As you know, I mean, we're accruing a lot of capital as we kind of go through each quarter. But we are doing things to proactively manage that capital. Last year, we bought Sabal Trust Company for cash. We affected the bond restructure this past quarter. We've consistently increased the common dividend. As John mentioned on the opening comments, we increased by $0.05 per share per quarter, so 11%. So those kinds of efforts, especially around buybacks and addressing the common dividend will certainly continue going forward. And certainly, last but not least, the first and best use of capital is to provide for organic balance sheet growth. So as we grow our balance sheet going forward, we think we can have a pretty good shot at hitting the capital targets I mentioned.

Operator, Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens.

Matt Olney, Analyst

Just want to follow up on the commentary around adding the new bankers. I think you mentioned there were 27 net new bankers. I would love to hear more about these new hires and their backgrounds and what type of lending they'll be focused on and what geographies?

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Sure, Matt. This is Shane. I'll give you some commentary on that. Based on our internal benchmarking, these new bankers typically begin contributing to loan growth within the first 12 months, become meaningfully additive in months 12 to 24, and show strong productivity in months 24 to 36. This matters in two ways. The 27 net new bankers in the first quarter, with additional hires planned in the second quarter, support incremental production as the year progresses. The bankers hired in 2024 and 2025 are now entering their prime growth years, which should create a nice compounding effect as the new hires ramp up. We've hired bankers from a variety of entities, with many in Texas; probably the majority are based there. On the fourth-quarter call I mentioned a target of 60% business bankers and 40% commercial and middle market, and we've actually exceeded that: 70% of these new bankers are in business banking, which is a more granular, higher-spread, deposit-rich segment of our portfolio, and 30% are in commercial and middle market. This gives us a strong flywheel heading into 2026, with bankers hired in 2024 and 2025 producing more significantly as the new bankers come on in 2026. Our process is strong and leader-driven; we began it in the fourth quarter of 2025 and it has paid big dividends. We will continue to add bankers, targeting 50 net new in 2026.

Matt Olney, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Appreciate all the color there, and it's great to see some good progress there. Follow-up question, I guess, more for Mike on the net interest margin. We saw some good expansion this quarter. You noted the securities restructuring, a big driver there. Any more color on the margin from here as we go throughout the year?

Michael Achary, CFO

Yes. Thank you, Matt. So as we kind of talked about on last quarter's call for the year, we had talked a little bit about margin expansion in the range of 12 to 15 basis points, and that would be from fourth quarter of last year to the fourth quarter of this year. So based on where we are now and what we achieved in the first quarter and what we know we can for the last 3 quarters of the year, remaining 3 quarters, we're pretty confident about hitting that target and maybe even some upside toward the upper end of that range. Certainly, that is very dependent upon us hitting our targets around loan growth, so the mid-single-digit growth year-over-year. We also have obviously a head start, if you will, with the bond restructure. In addition to that, we have just under $1 billion of principal cash flow yet to come from the bond portfolio that will come off at about 3.76% and go back on at, let's just say, 4.25% or better. So year-over-year, we're looking at about a 51 basis point improvement in the yield on the bond portfolio. And again, that's fourth quarter of last year to fourth quarter of this year. And then finally, we still have some ability to reprice CDs lower across this year. We kind of talked last quarter about year-over-year about a 16 basis point drop in our cost of deposits. We were down 10 basis points in the first quarter. So 6 over the remaining 3 quarters certainly seems doable even without the benefit of any Fed rate cuts. So on the CD front, we have, over the course of the year, about $7 billion maturing, $5 billion for the last 3 quarters, coming off at around 3.48% going back on at about 3.10% or so. Now the benefit of repricing those CDs will diminish as we kind of go through the year. And as we move into next year, again, without any benefit related to any rate cuts, that option of continuing to reprice CDs lower will largely have kind of played out. But certainly, as we think about our balance sheet and the things we're doing to organically grow it, that's where the benefit of loan growth will kind of replace the benefit that we had from repricing CDs over the last couple of years.

Operator, Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Catherine Mealor with KBW.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst

Just as a follow-up on the margin. As we think about loan yields. You feel like loan yields from this 5.61% level should be increasing as we move through the year, just given where new loan pricing is and kind of the back book repricing opportunities? Or is competition leaving that more flat and really the upside in your margins coming from the CD and the bond piece that you just talked about?

Michael Achary, CFO

Yes. The benefit that we talked about, Catherine, related to the NIM is really coming from the 3 things I mentioned. So the loan growth, the bond portfolio contribution and then lower cost of deposits. Without any rate cuts or increases for next year, we're looking at the yield on the loan portfolio to largely remain kind of where it is right now, so in that 5.60% to 5.62% range. Certainly, we have to deal with competition. But certainly, our ability to grow loans and maybe improve the mix of the loans that we're growing, we think, is enough to kind of keep that loan yield more or less where it is now.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst

Great. I found it interesting that by removing rate cuts you didn't raise your NIM guide, but it seems you're more comfortable targeting the high end of the range without any cuts. Is that a fair way to think about it? And did anything change?

Michael Achary, CFO

Right. And it really is, Catherine, that's a great observation. And as we think about the guidance for this year, again, we're not changing any of the guidance, but I would certainly give a little bit of a bias toward the upper end of the ranges, certainly on the revenue component, so NII and fees and then expenses as well. So we're thrilled to hire the 27 net new revenue producers for this year. The goal for the year, as Shane mentioned, is still around 50. But certainly hiring those folks sooner rather than later probably puts us in a position where the guidance for expenses is also kind of in the upper end of that range.

Operator, Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Christopher Marinac with Brean Research.

Christopher Marinac, Analyst

I wanted to ask about the new loan yield. I know you disclosed the figure in the back of the deck, but I was curious if that yield may, in fact, get higher given how rates had acted and perhaps a little bit of movement in spreads late in the quarter. Just thinking about where 2Q is going to go.

Michael Achary, CFO

Yes, Chris, again, without any rate action contemplated, I mean, certainly, I think the new loan yield more or less should stay in the neighborhood of where it is right now. That's certainly going to be impacted by any changes in mix and any changes between the contribution of fixed loans versus variable loans. So kind of quarter-over-quarter, that total new loan rate was down about 10 basis points. The rate on fixed rate loans was up around 25. The rate on variable rate loans was down about that same level, and that was obviously because of the 2 rate cuts that happened in the fourth quarter of last year. So I think somewhere going forward in that same neighborhood is probably a good territory for modeling.

Christopher Marinac, Analyst

Okay. And then if we think about sort of possible upgrades from the criticized book, do you see some of that playing out? And could that be a further tailwind this quarter and next quarter?

John Hairston, President and CEO

Yes. Thanks, Chris. What we've been seeing is a little bit less in the way of inflows, which has been really nice to see. And so as I think I mentioned on some earlier calls, it usually takes 4 to 5 quarters on average for a credit to kind of get to a point where either it refinances away or improves such that we can kind of upgrade it. And one of the things that I've been kind of watching is some of our lower pass categories. And what we're seeing is a little less inflow in the lower pass category, especially what we consider kind of watch credits. So I think what we'll see is probably a little bit more of a flattening of our criticized loans rather than continued improvement. I'd like to think that we can make some headway there, but we are still operating at a pretty low level in criticized loans. So I'm really pleased with the progress that we've made over the past several years in that regard.

Operator, Operator

The next question is from Casey Haire, Autonomous Research.

Casey Haire, Analyst

I want to touch on loan growth. Sorry, I may have missed this, but regarding Slide 9, I understand the guidance is that loan growth builds from this pace in the first quarter. I'm just wondering about the $820 million of prepayments in the first quarter; I'm not sure if I heard what you assume for prepayments going forward.

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Casey, in terms of unexpected prepayments or just planned.

Casey Haire, Analyst

Right. So you had unexpected prepayments as well as scheduled payments and maturities totaling $473 million. The $820 million in prepayments is what really hurt loan growth this quarter. I'm just not sure if I heard you say what you expect that to be going forward to deliver your mid-single-digit loan growth.

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Casey, in terms of unexpected prepayments or just planned. We have our production numbers detailed for the rest of the year. In those numbers, we include some offsets for expected payoffs. As I’ve said before, we factor in an amount for unexpected payoffs as additional production. We saw some payoffs at the end of the quarter and a bit of production shifted into the second quarter. So we’ve got a strong start to the second quarter, and that slightly impacted our first quarter numbers. I don’t have a specific number to give you, but I can tell you it’s planned into our overall production reconciliation.

John Hairston, President and CEO

This is John. I'll add a little bit more color. The horsepower behind the mid-single-digit loan growth number for the year is really production improvement. The unscheduled payments could certainly bounce around a little bit, but the expectation would be that they don't swiftly go way up or way down. So to be very clear, the expectation is all those factors, Shane and Mike comment on earlier leading to production going up in the range of the types of numbers we talked about mid last year when we discussed what to expect for '26 and then for '27. Did we answer your question? Or would you like to redirect?

Casey Haire, Analyst

No, that's good. Yes, that's great. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

The next question is from Brett Rabatin from StoneX.

Brett Rabatin, Analyst

I wanted to ask on the fee income guide. I know that syndication fees and SBA and SBIC, I know those are somewhat hard to predict. But just thinking about the guidance for the full year of kind of that 5% range, that's fairly flat from the first quarter. So I was just curious if you could maybe walk through what you guys see as the drivers on the fee side this year as you're thinking about that? And if there's any additional momentum maybe to be gained on the trust and wealth management side?

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Yes. Thank you. Fee income is performing in line with our expectations, and I believe it supports 4% to 5% growth for the full year of 2026. Fees in the first quarter were driven by treasury and business service charges, and merchant services were strong. We had one of our best months in merchant, which reflects our business banking focus and the leadership and sales activities there. SBA continues to be strong. Syndication fees, I think, will have opportunities throughout the year to continue producing, and we have a great team focused on that. Regarding wealth management, I see continued momentum there; it is now 35% of our total noninterest income. Many of the pivots we have made over the last several years are paying off, and we have enhanced leadership in a couple of areas that we believe will make a difference in the back half of the year. Market performance matters for wealth management fees. A significant portion of our wealth management fees is earned monthly on assets under management, so a stable or rising market should drive additional fee income growth, while a downward tilt in the market would put some pressure on annuitized wealth management fee income.

Michael Achary, CFO

Brett, this is Mike. The thing I would add and call a little bit of attention to is that while the guide is up 4% to 5%, it's safe to say the guidance is really, or the bias is really, toward the upper end of that range. If you look at our performance against guidance and fee income over the years, we do tend to overperform a little bit. You could call that guidance a bit conservative. It would not surprise us if we came in a little above that range, but we are not prepared right now to change the guidance. That's something we'll address as we go through the year. The other thing to call out, as we mentioned in the opening comments, is that specialty income can be somewhat difficult to predict and can vary a little quarter to quarter. For us, specialty income includes syndication fees, BOLI mortality gains, derivative fees and SBIC income. For example, last quarter we had a pretty sizable gain in SBIC fees, and that did not repeat in the first quarter. As we go through the year, we would expect SBIC fees to contribute to overall growth. That's an example of something that can create volatility and unpredictability as we go through the year. Hopefully that was helpful.

Brett Rabatin, Analyst

Yes. That was very helpful. And then maybe just housekeeping or maybe just a fundamental question around just the bond restructuring. One, just making sure that the guidance excludes or includes the bond restructuring for the full year. And then just thinking about the rationality going through, it's a little more than a 4-year payback, but it seems like things like that's where a lot of these things end up in terms of the payback. So I was just curious on your thought process. I know a lot of banks look at that every quarter, every week to think about. So just wanted to hear your thoughts on it.

Michael Achary, CFO

Yes. So obviously, the bond structure is part of the guidance for the full year and a bit of a driver. So we were thrilled to be able to execute that transaction in the middle of January. And certainly, as I mentioned before, I think on one of the earlier questions, it's a great use of capital. So it is something that we look at from time to time. We did one a couple of years ago that did admittedly have a little bit of a shorter payback period. And it's just the fact now that the bonds that populate our portfolio are such that executing a transaction like this does give you a little bit longer payback. But we still think it's a smart use of capital, and we're glad to have executed the transaction certainly.

Operator, Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson.

Gary Tenner, Analyst

I had a couple of questions. Mike, I was curious about CD repricing or CD rolls as they renew. When we were going through the easing cycle initially, I know you were very focused on keeping those CD maturities pretty short, roughly a six-month focus, so you could turn them quickly. Has that approach changed at all given the uncertainty about which direction rates might go at some point and how you are trying to ladder those CD maturities?

Michael Achary, CFO

Yes. Great question, Gary. And it absolutely has. What we're doing now, and the way we're modifying those tactics and our strategy, is to the extent we can begin to lengthen out some of those CD maturities. For example, the best promotional rate we have on CDs right now is 3.5% for 11 months. So the intent, obviously, is to extend the duration of those a little bit going forward.

Gary Tenner, Analyst

Great. Appreciate that. And just to clarify your comment about expecting a similar pace of buybacks: you used about one-third of your authorization in the first quarter. Is the right interpretation that you might use it all up earlier and then do nothing in the fourth quarter? Or would the Board potentially approve an additional authorization earlier than usual? Or will the remainder be spread more evenly over the rest of the year?

Michael Achary, CFO

Yes. Great question. I hate to say it, but it's kind of all of the above. If you look at the authority we have for the year, it was about 4.1 million shares, and we leaned into the buyback pretty heavily this quarter. We saw an opportunity when the stock pulled back and bought 1.4 million shares. The intent is absolutely to exhaust the buyback authority this year, whether we do that early or spread it more evenly across the remaining three quarters remains to be seen. We want to preserve optionality and flexibility to react to the market. The caveats are the environment, our own valuation, and how much we’re growing the balance sheet. Our intent is always to deploy capital first to support organic balance sheet growth, and then lean into buybacks and common dividend increases after that. The pertinent point is the intent to exhaust the authority this year. If we do exhaust it early, we will decide with the Board whether to re-up early or wait until the beginning of next year.

Operator, Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Jared Shaw with Barclays.

Jon Ra, Analyst

This is Jon Ra on for Jared. I guess, first, maybe just thinking about the conflict in the Middle East and higher oil prices. I know you're not a big direct energy lender, but just wondering how that dynamic impacts borrowers and I guess, sentiment in your market?

John Hairston, President and CEO

We'll start with sentiment and then maybe Chris can mop up if there's any credit tone for the question. Shane, do you want to begin?

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Thanks. We do a regular client survey a couple of times a year and really try to understand what's going on with clients, what are they thinking in terms of investments and those kind of things. At this point, I think the word is cautious. They are optimistic. I think that at this point, the Iran conflict and war has really kind of crept into energy cost. But on top of energy cost, folks are looking at labor cost, insurance cost across the markets that we serve as kind of some of the guidepost of when they're going to invest and how much they're going to invest. I would say at this point, we don't have clients that are giving us very specific reasons of why they will or won't invest that are centered around the current war.

Christopher Ziluca, Chief Credit Officer

I mean I think that's spot on. I mean it's probably early to tell. I'm sure if it persists for a long time. I mean it will probably start to show up from a credit standpoint in various areas, especially those that don't have the ability to pass on some of those cost increases. Some have them built into their contracts if they have a contract in place. So it's probably easier to at least pass it on. But I think it's just too early to tell. It's certainly something that we're watching and we're mindful of. I think overall, operating costs for companies and individuals have risen probably faster than their income has. So there's probably a little bit of a squeeze going on, but it hasn't really shown up dramatically at this stage.

Jon Ra, Analyst

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then just thinking about attracting new commercial customers and maintaining a competitive product set. Are there any capabilities in like treasury management or like payments or anything that customers are asking for that has led to any thought around further like investments in that platform?

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

Yes. Thank you. This is Shane. Look, we aspire to be the best bank for privately owned businesses and business owners in the country, and we feel like we're on that path. And that really ties back to certainty of execution and quick credit decisions. great treasury and deposit products and then a sophisticated wealth management capability. So when it comes to treasury, we are continually updating our systems, continuing to interface with more third parties such that clients that are using accounting systems and other types of systems to manage their business that ties directly into our treasury products. We're continually investing in card products. We feel like we've got one of the best purchasing card programs in the country. And on top of that, we're working on real-time payments and new payment capabilities that will help facilitate and hopefully reduce cost and complexity for clients.

Jon Ra, Analyst

Okay. Perfect. That's helpful. And then, sorry, just one last question for me. Do you have the total revenue producer number at the bank today to help provide some context around the size of the new hires?

Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer

The revenue producers, let's call it, north of 200.

John Hairston, President and CEO

This is John. I think the number you're fishing for is a quarter or 2 ago, we suggested that we were going to raise the expectation for compounded annual revenue producers to go maybe towards 15% annualized versus the 10% we talked about a year ago. And the first quarter success with landing bankers certainly supports that thought process. Is that what you're looking for?

Jon Ra, Analyst

Yes. Yes, exactly.

Operator, Operator

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. John Hairston for closing remarks.

John Hairston, President and CEO

Thanks, Abby, for moderating the call. Everything went well. Thanks, everyone, for your interest, and we look forward to seeing you on the road very soon. Have a great afternoon.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.